Recognizing and Managing Your Emotions – Jocko Willink & Major Jay Tate

in some ways i was pleased in some ways i was a little frightened to bring up um the experiences and i’ll be perfectly honest i had a lot of anxiety coming here today though i have read this book and a number of times read undaunted valor 719 quite a few times i’ve earmarked it i’ve read after action reports on it that that hopefully matt and he did he had some of these uh after-action reports uh that he took his data from um but still sitting here uh now and talking about it with you and you weren’t there uh i could talk about somebody that was there and uh but and not have anxiety but you weren’t there and i often wonder i’m telling you this but what are you actually hearing because you weren’t there and you can tell me about what you did and i can listen to it but i wasn’t there and so there’s a difference yeah yeah there’s there’s always going to be a little gap or a big gap depending on you know the person’s experiences and you know what one thing i think is interesting about you when you start talking about coming home and what you’re going through i think the one thing that’s good is if people actually understand what they’re feeling a little bit and i remember like you get a new guy that’s overseas and i’d look at a new guy that’s overseas now you could tell they’re nervous right and you know just say something like hey man you’re you know that feeling you get in your stomach and they’d be like you know trying not to tell you but then they’d admit to it yeah and i go yeah you’re just nervous it’s your it’s your body getting ready to go fight it’s totally normal that’s what you should feel like and they’d be like oh okay oh you oh by the way you won’t be able to sleep tonight because we gotta operation tomorrow you’re not gonna be able to sleep tonight so that’s just the way it is don’t worry about it and i think it’s the same thing coming home you know it’s like oh oh oh you’re gonna get you’re gonna get sad sometimes this doesn’t mean you’re weak it doesn’t mean you’re uh trapped in the past it just means you miss your friends and that’s okay and so if you are thinking about something and it and it makes you cry hey yeah that’s what that’s what happens you know it’s yeah that’s the way it is and i think if people understand that that that’s that that’s normal then they go oh okay well that’s that’s just what’s gonna happen it’s okay and i think when people don’t think it’s normal and all of a sudden they think i can’t control my emotions or i’m scared or um i’m sad and i shouldn’t be sad and i shouldn’t be scared it’s like no it’s fine no big deal that’s just the way it is you you do your job you you know you’re gonna be scared you got the you got the queasy stomach you can’t sleep at night okay cool yeah guess what there’s a bunch of other guys that’s not not sleeping tonight either no big deal no big deal oh you get home you you’re gonna feel sad you’re gonna miss your friends yeah we all miss them that’s the way it is that that’s okay and i think that helps people out a lot to be able to just say oh okay what i’m feeling is not an isolated thing it’s just the way human beings process the the tough experiences that they go through but you know we both served in the kind of service that at one time you didn’t show that emotion yeah and you weren’t expected to i think the service and a hope i’ve read that they have i’ve seen interviews that they have that now that’s been taken consideration it’s okay to express what you’re feeling right now it’s okay to go seek counseling because it’s not going to end up on your officer efficiency report or your annual report or whatever report you’re going to get and so i think that has been a great improvement with the way we receive uh our warfighting men and women uh especially those who have come back and been engaged in combat one thing i’ll say uh about the getting excited and and nervous about the upcoming mission and i would do the same thing in vietnam i mean people said were you scared i said well yeah i’m scared but hey you know this is what we signed up to do and this is it’s what we’re going to do and a lot of times i mean i’ve said that trying to convince myself but see i was a platoon commander i couldn’t sit there and tell my troops oh my god i’m scared death or god ah i had to put on the show i had to do that but the interesting thing about it is once we strapped on that helicopter and we took off in flight all of that drained it all drained i mean it never amazed me got a job to do well yeah i mean you were busy you were monitoring three radios you were you know talking to the crew there i mean it all drained i mean even going into even going into lola that morning when we were doing 90 knots approaching we should have been done 60 or 40 and we were coming in there and but you cycle that thing back in that damn nose pitches up and you’re saying oh hell i hope my tail rudder doesn’t hit the ground and then you put that sucker down and you’re taking fire all over the place you don’t have time to be scared you you re you react by the training that you’ve had and by god that training was good yeah yeah exactly and that’s uh i think the same way everybody feels i mean if you’re gonna be nervous it’s usually before an operation and for me i was always just more nervous about my my friends my guys that’s what i was always worried about hey i hope nothing happens to guys you know uh but then once for us it’s once the breach goes you know where once the once the breach goes now it’s on everybody knows we’re here we’re doing what we’re doing you know once we leave the gate front gate you’re you’re doing your job and there’s no time to think about that you can’t you can’t waste any mental capacity thinking about what could happen or what might happen because you got to do your job and you don’t want to have anything else in your head besides hey what do i need to do right now how can i do my best job right now that’s what i’m thinking about uh but again i seen some nervous new guys and just hey man it’s all right no big deal and and i think that helps people a lot just like anything anytime you can give somebody a heads up about what’s about to happen or what i’ve had this feeling with uh train training mma fighters mixed martial arts fighters to go and fight and i saw the exact same thing this is kind of where i started putting it together oh i tell them hey oh your stomach a little queasy yeah i’m super nervous yeah you’re supposed to be you’re getting ready to go into a fight yeah it’s okay and that would put them at ease because they’d realize oh this is just normal this is just me getting ready to go into you know that form of sporting combat i think but but but to add to that i think it’s good to be a little nervous for sure because you’re more on your game for sure